Portrait of Jennie (B+ or 3.5/4 stars)
'Portrait of Jennie' is a mysterious romantic fantasy directed by William Dieterle & whimsically adapted from a popular novel. The film opens with a quote from the ancient Greek, Euripides, "Since time began, man has looked into the awesome reaches of infinity & asked the eternal questions: What is time? What is life? What is space? What is death? Through a hundred civilizations, philosophers & scientists have come together with answers, but the bewilderment remains ... Science tells us that nothing ever dies but only changes, that time itself does not pass but curves around us, and that the past & the future are together at our side forever. Out of the shadows of knowledge, & out of a painting that hung on a museum wall, comes our story, the truth of which lies not on our screen but in our hearts".
In the winter of 1934, struggling artist Eben (Joseph Cotten) tries to sell his landscape paintings to an art gallery but is turned down by Mr. Matthews (Cecil Kellaway). However, the kind maid Miss Spinney (Ethel Barrymore) recognizes his plight & buys a painting. While sitting on a Central Park bench in temporary bliss, he is joined by an eerily beautiful young girl named Jennie (Jennifer Jones), who tells him that she is playing alone because her parents are working at the theater as trapeze artists. He is intrigued by her cheery nature, the oddity of the things she says & a song she sings with the mercurial lyrics: "Where I come from, nobody knows ... and where I'm going, everything goes ... the wind blows, the sea flows ... and nobody knows".
She then vanishes; leaving behind a scarf wrapped in a paper from 1910. Inspired by her joy for life, he sketches her portrait & sells it to the gallery. Running into her a few months later, it appears as if she has aged quite a bit. Eben eventually learns that a) her parents were killed in an accident, and b) her aunt had then sent her to a convent. Each subsequent time they meet, she ages considerably {she is 'hurrying to grow up for him' -- odd, again}. After learning from a nun (Lillian Gish) that Jennie recently died in a hurricane by a lighthouse, Eben suspects that she may be a ghost. And so, with the notion of time & space playing tricks on him ... he meets Jennie one last time; hoping to rescue her from the expected storm on Cape Cod. Will their love be able to continue jumping the confines of time?
'Portrait of Jennie' is an odd duck of a movie, but so too is it hauntingly magical; a film that really defies explanation -- you just have to see it to believe it. It's the kind of film that you just have to let wash over you & let it envelop you for its concise 88 minute run time. Not one scene is superfluous. Not one line of dialogue is immaterial. More directors should learn from the example set here by William Dieterle. There is something beguiling about this innocent love story and, there is great intrigue in figuring out the mystifying nature of the encounters between artist & muse.
Jennifer Jones is radiant as Jennie; delicately sketching a character with subtle, yet definite changes as she ages from school age girl to young adult woman. She is almost otherworldly, here. Joseph Cotten also transforms from bemused stranger to lovelorn man cast under Jennie's spell. Joseph H. August's black-&-white cinematography + the Academy Award-winning special effects team create a captivating climactic storm sequence, followed by the final Technicolor shot of Jennie's portrait is just genius. Speaking of the last shot, it's just a profoundly moving moment; the kind of perfect image that definitively encapsulates the power & beauty of a whole movie. Strange as the film is, I just really took to this ethereal romantic fantasy.
In the winter of 1934, struggling artist Eben (Joseph Cotten) tries to sell his landscape paintings to an art gallery but is turned down by Mr. Matthews (Cecil Kellaway). However, the kind maid Miss Spinney (Ethel Barrymore) recognizes his plight & buys a painting. While sitting on a Central Park bench in temporary bliss, he is joined by an eerily beautiful young girl named Jennie (Jennifer Jones), who tells him that she is playing alone because her parents are working at the theater as trapeze artists. He is intrigued by her cheery nature, the oddity of the things she says & a song she sings with the mercurial lyrics: "Where I come from, nobody knows ... and where I'm going, everything goes ... the wind blows, the sea flows ... and nobody knows".
She then vanishes; leaving behind a scarf wrapped in a paper from 1910. Inspired by her joy for life, he sketches her portrait & sells it to the gallery. Running into her a few months later, it appears as if she has aged quite a bit. Eben eventually learns that a) her parents were killed in an accident, and b) her aunt had then sent her to a convent. Each subsequent time they meet, she ages considerably {she is 'hurrying to grow up for him' -- odd, again}. After learning from a nun (Lillian Gish) that Jennie recently died in a hurricane by a lighthouse, Eben suspects that she may be a ghost. And so, with the notion of time & space playing tricks on him ... he meets Jennie one last time; hoping to rescue her from the expected storm on Cape Cod. Will their love be able to continue jumping the confines of time?
'Portrait of Jennie' is an odd duck of a movie, but so too is it hauntingly magical; a film that really defies explanation -- you just have to see it to believe it. It's the kind of film that you just have to let wash over you & let it envelop you for its concise 88 minute run time. Not one scene is superfluous. Not one line of dialogue is immaterial. More directors should learn from the example set here by William Dieterle. There is something beguiling about this innocent love story and, there is great intrigue in figuring out the mystifying nature of the encounters between artist & muse.
Jennifer Jones is radiant as Jennie; delicately sketching a character with subtle, yet definite changes as she ages from school age girl to young adult woman. She is almost otherworldly, here. Joseph Cotten also transforms from bemused stranger to lovelorn man cast under Jennie's spell. Joseph H. August's black-&-white cinematography + the Academy Award-winning special effects team create a captivating climactic storm sequence, followed by the final Technicolor shot of Jennie's portrait is just genius. Speaking of the last shot, it's just a profoundly moving moment; the kind of perfect image that definitively encapsulates the power & beauty of a whole movie. Strange as the film is, I just really took to this ethereal romantic fantasy.